


Little Red Cap

by SimiTheTrickster



Series: The (Mis)Adventures Of The Consulting Trickster [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Age Play, Ageplay, Discipline, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Sentiment, Spanking, Tooth-Rotting Sweetness, cuteness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-02-11 07:30:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12930474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimiTheTrickster/pseuds/SimiTheTrickster
Summary: Sherlock Holmes assumed this would be just a typical case like always (if not BORING!) but as the young girl eyed him with desperation, there was something just so deeply interesting about her.... Can he come to terms with what this may mean, or will this spell disaster for the world's one and only consulting detective?





	1. Interesting

**Author's Note:**

> I stumbled upon (well, more like my boyfriend thrust it upon me) a song that inspired this. Don't ask me why, but I just HAD to make a sort-of Little Red Riding Hood kind of fic....with Sherlock as the "big, bad wolf"!
> 
> Check out the song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrlsiGkWy1I

Typically the clients that came in were so very uninteresting (“BAWRING!” is Sherlock’s typical indignant scowl, much to John’s dismay) and people in general were much like goldfish (Mycroft’s own personal wording to the decline of intelligence rapidly increasing) but today proved a bit different. Sherlock had been case-less for far too long, but he hadn’t piqued an interest right away; rather, when she first appeared, he’d waved it off with a sneer.

John had gotten up to peer out the window for the source of the cat yowl, but his eyes fell upon the young girl pacing in front of 221B. He had made comments out loud (“Oh, we have a client…” and “I guess not…”) as she seemed debating on whether or not to enter, which Sherlock had haphazardly brushed it off with a comment about it pertaining to a love affair – either on the girl’s part or her lover’s.

Now, however, Sherlock was actually stunned; once the girl had come into the flat and shucked off her red hood before spilling what she’d like to hire them for, Sherlock had fallen into a contemplative silence, much to John’s shock.

“S-sir?” The girl tentatively pressed, her voice meek and quiet. Sherlock had his hands clasped in a steeple at his chin, staring at her in a most intense fashion; John knew he was deducing her as he stared.

The call pulled Sherlock from the depths of his thoughts and he frowned. “Don’t call me that.” He snipped, though his tone was considerably less sharp than usual.

The young girl had come to him with a request; she’d asked, nay begged, that he locate her birth mother for her. She hadn’t gone into great detail, just stating that she’d like for her mother to be found and the location disclosed back to her.

Sherlock would have easily dismissed the case as ‘boring,’ as he was by no means a private eye, but what he’d deduced from the girl gave him pause. Her voice had cracked and grown steadily closer to a mumble with each word as she’d spoken, but never gave a reason as to why she would want her mother located. Very slight tears had welled in her already-red-rimmed star-burst colored eyes (at present, the irises were a deep green with flecks of blue and brown throughout them), and her gaze wavered; when she thought he would turn her down, she would lock eyes with him in a silent plead before returning them submissively to the carpet where they remained the majority of the time.

“Interesting…” Sherlock mused aloud as he watched the girl seemingly shrink back at his slight snip; she was incredibly withdrawn, it seemed. He deduced she’d been thoroughly abused in her childhood and had grown into a very meek and submissive individual. He decided to test her resolve. “I’ll not be taking your case.” He replied as he moved towards the door and opened it for her.

John was about to snap at Sherlock, but a very slight and subtle hand movement from the detective caused him to pause; he’d known the man long enough to tell he had something in mind.

The girl hung her head sadly and stood to head for the door. She moved to the door and lifted her head, her eyes meeting his before hurriedly looking away again. “Are you very sure you will not help me?” Her voice wavered once more.

“Very sure.” Sherlock gave her a curt nod, his hand still holding the door-handle.

“Please…?” The beg was hardly a whimper, but Sherlock had heard her.

“Good day, Miss.” Sherlock shut the door before she could respond and held his hand again to stop John from saying anything; the hand curled until only his pointer was up and he raised it to his lips.

The pair listened to the fading footfalls and John’s gaze darkened; how could Sherlock be so cruel as to turn her away, blithely ignoring the girl’s desperation?! He was about to say as much when he noticed Sherlock silently begin using his fingers to count down from five.

Sure enough, when Sherlock’s final finger curled, a sharp knock resounded in the flat and Sherlock pulled open the door once more.

“You can’t just turn me away! I-I need your help! Please!” The girl had returned and there was a red flush to her face; John could tell it was from anger and desperation combined, and slight indignation at having a door, quite literally, shut in her face.

John could tell just by the way she was standing – good lord, Sherlock was rubbing off on him – that she was expecting to be, once more, rejected.

Sherlock gestured to the client chair but kept silent; his way of inviting her back inside.

Once the girl had taken her seat once more, John made his way to Sherlock and ushered him into the kitchen, where he began to berate him in hushed tones. “How could you do that to her? Look at the poor girl! She’s shaken up!”

Sherlock tried his best to keep the exasperation from his tone; for John only did he try to check himself. “She’s exhibiting clear signs of past trauma; likely caused by abuse. I needed to test her resolve, John.”

“Test her—Sherlock, do you hear yourself?! If she’s been abused before, she doesn’t need it now, especially not from you!” John sighed and leaned back to steal a glance at the girl; the way she was fidgeting with the bottom of her coat, worrying her lip which showed signs of past scabs as well as faint scars, her face contorted in discomfort and fear, John could see what Sherlock meant. “I see what you mean.”

“You see but you do not observe!” Sherlock raised his hands in exasperation before taking a deep breath. “I will take her case, but I would prefer to do so in a different manner than she is expecting. Don’t nag me, Jawn.” Sherlock’s tone had a hint of a whinge to it, but John steeled himself to ignore it; the detective did it enough that he nearly no longer noticed it anyways.

“If she has PTSD as you’re suggesting, just be nice about it, Sherlock. She is human; she has emotions, even if you so adamantly do not.”

“Sentiment.” The detective grumbled under his breath before he made his way back into the sitting room; much to John’s dismay, he got the last word much the same way as he always did.

Sherlock sat in his chair and put his hands in a steeple at his chin again. “Why?” He asked simply, his eyes narrowing just slightly as he stared at the client, studying everything about her.

The girl’s face paled considerably, feeling mere inches tall under his scrutiny. “I-I….b-because I n-need to find her…my mother…” She forced herself not to whimper as she spoke, but she could do nothing to stop the stammers.

Sherlock curled his fingers down until his hands were clasped together aside from his pointers and thumbs; they stayed steepled as he pointed at her with his pointers. “Why.” It was no longer a question at this point, more a soft demand that she tell him the full extent of her reasoning.

“B-because….I…” The whimper escaped this time.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he continued to bore his stare into her.

She fidgeted in her seat, trying her hardest to keep from simpering. Minutes ticked by agonizingly slowly as she began to crumble and wither under his intense gaze. John was about to step in and demand Sherlock end his incessant silent tirade, when a soft voice broke the silence.

“I want to make her pay…” The young girl whispered, but both men heard her nonetheless.

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed even further before he broke his gaze and stood up. “Listen, _girl_ , I am a consulting detective. I’m not, nor will I ever be, a private eye. I don’t track people down for a living because that’s _BORING!_ ” He threw his hands in the air for emphasis before taking two long strides over to where the girl sat.

She hardly took up the entire chair as small as she was; it was obvious (to Sherlock, at least) that the girl was an adult (‘twenty, by the looks of it,’ he thought to himself) but her small stature made her look more like an eleven year old. He placed his hands on either side of the seat of the chair in which she sat and leaned forward as she shrank away from him.

“As you have failed to explain to me your entire reasoning behind tracking down this person, you’ve caused me to lose any semblance of interest I may have originally had in this case.” Sherlock continued his rant, and despite that she opened her mouth to respond, he continued on. “Why should I help a tiny, simpering female who lacks the courage to ask for things she wants? Red hood, black hair with curls that have obviously been forcibly tamed, pale complexion; you look like a child from a storybook.

Your story surely adds to that. Run along, snow white; I’m not interested in helping a grieving child. Just because you lo—“ Sherlock’s rant ended on a slight strangled noise from himself. He’d moved his intense glare to her eyes but the raw immense pain he saw in them gave him pause. Sherlock was not one for sentiment, but the pain he saw made him think of the pain he’d feel should John ever cease to exist.

 

The noise was not lost on either John or the girl, but neither made a comment towards it; the girl was too afraid to speak, and John was perplexed by the noise but quite used to nearly all things Sherlock, assuming the noise was simply part of the detective's tirade.

His features softened for all of a microsecond before he steeled himself and pulled away, turning to look at John. “Tea, John.” The usual edge to his tone was gone, but that didn’t stop the doctor from looking offended at the demand; he didn’t say anything, however, but he stormed into the kitchen and began slamming cupboards open and closed as he did as requested.

Sherlock turned back to the girl and regarded her quietly before he crossed his arms over his chest. “Someone dear to you has very recently passed away and it’s clear that your mother was the perpetrator of childhood abuse. Why would you want her tracked down now? Why did you not do anything sooner?”

“I-I…uh…” She tried her hardest to form words, but she was still taken aback by the abrupt and brief rant Sherlock had displayed; it didn’t matter, it seemed, as Sherlock carried on as if she hadn’t even stammered the slight bit she had.

“I see. You didn’t care what she’d done to you, but the recent death was caused by her, hmm?” Sherlock stared at her, but he seemed to stare right through her. “The recent death must be someone close to you.” His gaze narrowed and he was no longer staring through her; instead, he was studying her once more. “The death was a family member. Not a sibling, however.”

After a moment of squirming under his intense gaze, she jumped and let out a startled squeak; Sherlock had gasped and clapped his hands, quite obviously figuring it out. “You father! Of course, how daft of me. You must have been very close to him and now feel the need for retribution.”

The young girl’s face contorted as a wave of grief hit her, but she nodded solemnly at his declaration. “He was my best friend…” She whispered.

Before Sherlock could continue, a tea cup was presented to both him and the guest.

“Quite unsanitary, Doctor.” Sherlock mused as he set his cuppa off to the side, annoyed that it had been spit in and thus ruined the point of it even having been brought to him. John shot him a smug look from the kitchen as he continued making his own cup.

Sherlock waited until the young girl had drained her cup of tea before he spoke again. “You want your mother to pay for what she did, so she needs to be tracked down beforehand. That is why you sought me out?” He already knew the answer, but he wanted it clarified for John’s sake.

The young girl sighed and nodded. “She hurt me…all my life…and it hurt him to not be able to help me… I thought that when I got older and moved away, she’d stop all her nonsense…but she just turned it to him…” She stood up and moved towards Sherlock, though she kept her gaze on the floor. “My dad…sent me this… it was postmarked the day he died…” She pulled a package from her pocket and held it out for Sherlock.

He took it and pulled out the contents; a handwritten letter, a small cassette tape, and a vial of liquid were all the package contained. Sherlock quickly scanned over the letter before tossing it onto his seat to instead examine the vial. “Interesting…” He murmured softly.

He stared at the vial for a long while in contemplation before he set it and the cassette on his chair. “Well, I will begin figuring out her means of offing him straight away.” Sherlock held his arm out towards the door. “I shall contact you as soon as I have figured it out so that I may get any information you may have towards her location.”

The young girl nodded and made her way to the door, Sherlock following behind. He pulled open the door, but before he could close it behind her, she turned to face him once more. “How did you know I would want you to figure out how she did it?”

“I observe.” Sherlock’s lip twitched the slightest bit, though it was not from amusement; more he was extremely used to such questions. “Have a good evening, Miss…?”

“Haverschmith.” She pulled her hood up and tugged it down to shield her eyes. “Emiliana Haverschmith.” And with that, she turned her heel and left the flat of 221B Baker street having gotten the last word over the one and only Sherlock Holmes.


	2. Think, think, think!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock figures out how Emiliana's father was offed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been years since I dusted off and used what I know of Science. I'm sure I fucked up majorly; I mean, clearly I'm not a very good author lmao.  
> This hasn't been beta'd or brit-picked, so please tell me if I botched anything; also, if one of you is interested in beta-ing, please let me know.

Emiliana had just barely finished retreating down the stairs before John descended on Sherlock.

“Snow white?” John asked incredulously, before he caved to scold Sherlock; he intended to make sure the younger man was listening first, and this question had preyed on his mind since Sherlock had said it.

“Mm. Yes. Story book character; fitting, isn’t it?” Sherlock mused as he stared at the items on his chair.

“More akin to Little Red Riding Hood; didn’t you see her hood?” John sighed wearily.

“Who?” Sherlock was clearly distracted, so John moved on to the other thoughts on his mind.

 “If you intended to take her case, why would give her the run around like that? Is everything a game to you, Sherlock?!” His voice raised an octave or two as he made his exasperation known, but Sherlock was ignoring him.

Sherlock had moved back to his chair and grabbed up the two most interesting items from the package; the vial of whatever liquid and the cassette. It was clear to Sherlock that whatever the vial contained was likely some sort of substance that would be extremely hard to pick up in blood tests, or the signs of foul play would have already been written in any sort of police report and thus negate the reason for the girl having needed to seek him out.

“Sherlock, are you even listening to me?! You could have hurt that poor girl! She’s not just some experiment for you to toy with, you know! She’s a human being and she deserves to be treated better than that!”

Sherlock gave John a noncommittal hum of acknowledgement, but he hadn’t heard a single thing the doctor had said.

“Sod this. I’m going to surgery.” John clenched his fists before tugging on his jumper and stalking from the flat, slamming the door in his wake.

“Mm. I’ll get the milk.” Sherlock murmured to the empty flat, entirely unaware that John had stormed off; his attention was focused on setting up an old cassette deck and putting the left behind cassette into it.

Sherlock rewound the cassette as far as it would go and hit play before he put his hands in a steeple below his chin and closed his eyes, listening not just to the words but any and all background noise as well.

White noise settled over the flat, emitting from the cassette deck and Sherlock concentrated on any background noise there may be.

‘Pumpkin, I’m hoping this got to you….but if it did, it means I’m no longer around.’ There was a crackling noise that followed, which Sherlock could tell was because of movement. The gruff sound of the man’s voice crackled from an emotion, a weary sigh before he continued. ‘Your mother…she’s making me ill. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but I am so afraid she will come for you next…’ A shuffling noise followed by, ‘I’m sending you a package, pumpkin. I found some sort of liquid in her room. It doesn’t smell like perfume, and it only made me sicker. Please, seek out one Sherlock Holmes. He’ll know. I can’t remember his address, but he’s famous so it shouldn’t be too hard to dig out. I lo-‘

The recording cut out and Sherlock rewound the cassette, turning the sound up to its highest setting before playing it once more. He tuned out the man’s talking as he sat back and listened intently.

There were background noises of adults talking though Sherlock couldn’t make out the words. A door could be heard opening before the recording cut out.

‘Foul play indeed…’ Sherlock thought to himself.

Sherlock turned off the cassette deck and collected the vial from his chair, but hesitated. While he did have a small lab set up in his kitchen, it may not prove to be the most effective in sorting out what the vial may contain.

After a moment’s deliberation, Sherlock threw on his coat and tied his scarf around his neck. “I’m going to Bart’s, John.” He called and disappeared from the flat, despite no one having heard it. Obviously Sherlock had no clues that John wasn’t even at 221B at present.

It didn’t take long for Sherlock to grab a cab and make it to Bart’s, but the task was tedious enough that he was annoyed by the time he got there; he was always annoyed by the tediousness of daily activities. Why couldn’t he just appear there? It would make everything that much easier, he felt.

Sherlock didn’t typically give many second glances to people, but he had to do a double-take on Molly’s appearance. The young woman usually had her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail, but today she wore it down; curls framing her face, deliberate dabs of perfume at the nape of her neck and her wrists, make-up obviously painstakingly applied, expensive looking heels, evidence of incredibly revealing dress underneath her lab coat as well as a second, more casual, outfit over top.

“Date, Molly?” Sherlock commented; though there was the usual questioning lilt to his words, anyone who knew him knew that he didn’t ask things of the like.

“Yes, he’s…he’s quite nice.” Molly twisted her fingers together as she followed after Sherlock towards the lab.

“Mm…” Came the reply; Sherlock didn’t care.

“A romantic.” Molly pressed.

“Mm…hmm…” Sherlock was on a mission.

“The settling down type.” Molly continued.

“Quite so.” Sherlock pushed open the door to the lab. “Ah!” He exclaimed as he went up to the microscope; it wasn’t as if it were a new discovery, it was just his way of ending the conversation with the meek mortician.

Molly took the cue and sighed as she left the lab, leaving Sherlock to his work. She bristled under the skin at the brush-off, but she shouldn’t have been surprised; Sherlock had been this way since the very first day he’d come into her lab.

Sherlock set up the necessary tests to figure out the strange liquid contained in the vial before sitting himself at the microscope. He’d separated the liquid into different tests; a bit in a beaker to boil, a bit in a separate vial in a platelet machine (such as what is typically used in plasma banks), and a bit on a slide in order to be studied under the microscope.

It was less than a half an hour before his tests came back with positive matches; 19 minutes, in fact, is all it had taken before the computer beeped with a positive. Sherlock continued to stare into the microscope; the tests came back quick and he was a tad annoyed with how easy it had been. Succinylcholine. A drug that paralyzes all muscles in the body, including ones needed for breathing; doctors typically administered it to help them insert breathing tubes. But that wasn’t what bothered him.

Having looked up the case file on Emiliana’s father, his autopsy revealed signs of a heart attack. Sherlock’s brow furrowed for a moment before he slammed his hands on the lab countertop. Succinylcholine could have killed the man on its own, and it would hardly have been noticed in an autopsy because of how it metabolizes into the system; succinic acid and choline were both normal to the human system.

So why had the autopsy said heart attack?

Sherlock closed his eyes and pictured every word that had been written on the autopsy report; surely he had missed something! Sherlock’s hands twitched and moved around his head as he began to review bits and pieces about the case that he knew; the recording didn’t reveal much, it was practically useless, and without the knowledge of what caused the supposed heart attack, the knowledge of succinylcholine was practically useless as well.

A portion of the autopsy floated to him but before he could grasp it, he was yanked from his Mind Palace quite abruptly.

“Sherlock!”

“What?!” He snapped as he leveled a glower on John. “I was quite busy, Jawn! I almost HAD IT!”

The shorter man frowned and put a package on the counter next to Sherlock, whom eyed it with a narrowed gaze.

“A package came for you, postmarked urgent. You’re welcome.” John didn’t even give Sherlock a chance to reply before he disappeared from the lab, not that Sherlock would have replied; his focus was entirely on the package.

Sherlock scowled at the package before closing his eyes once more; he needed to figure out what his Mind Palace had been trying to tell him, dammit!

It only took a few minutes of trying to return to his mind palace that Sherlock knew it was in vain. His mind was far more focused and interested in the package John had brought him to allow him to continue what he’d been doing. Huffing a frustrated sigh, Sherlock opened his eyes and leveled a glare on the package. He might as well open it, since it was so distracting, but that didn’t make him any less irritated for the interruption.

He studied the package intently; there was a hastily written address to him, with a smudged return in the corner; it was clear the package had come from Emiliana, though her name was a bit smudged but her address still fully readable. It was small, a few inches in length and width; fairly light, though judging from the faint noise when being moved it was easy to tell there was some sort of liquid concealed inside.

Sherlock figured whatever was inside would likely reveal to be the final clue in the report, but he didn’t yet want to open the package; he was, in all honesty, intending to figure it out first, but curiosity was getting to him. What could possibly be in the package? Bleach? Meth? Melted gummy bears? Chloroform?

He wasn’t stupid, however; he knew none of those options were really in the package, or their chemical makeups would have shown on the toxicity report.

Sherlock let out a long-suffering sigh, despite no one being around for him to have sighed at, and opened the package before spilling the contents on the lab counter in front of him. As predicted, a vial of liquid rolled to the middle of the counter; with it, a handwritten note fluttered from the package in front of him.

Sherlock snatched up the note and read it over:

_“Dear Mr. Holmes,_

_After a small search of my flat, I found another vial hidden underneath one of my chairs; it was located in the area that I originally opened the package my father sent me. I’m near %100 positive it came from him._

_Judging from the color of the liquid, and the scent it gives off, I’d say it’s Potassium Chloride._

_Good luck,_

_Emiliana.”_

Sherlock read over the note one more time despite not needing to; he’d retained everything it said the instant he’d read it. He was puzzled, however; now that it had been pointed out, he was entirely sure she was correct. Potassium had the potential to mimic a heart attack, but that wasn’t what puzzled him; how had she, a boring and unclever individual, figured it out before he had? Had he underestimated her?

Sherlock frowned, knitting his brows together in frustration; he had never underestimated someone before, aside from Moriarty when the man had put on a façade.

Just to be entirely sure, Sherlock put some of the liquid into the platelet machine and more on a slide for him to study himself under the microscope; 7 minutes had hardly passed before it came back with a positive match, proving the girl’s assessment correct. The liquid was, in fact, Potassium Chloride; her father had suffered two of the three liquids used in lethal injections in the United States.

Sherlock sighed and put his face in his hands; how had he blundered so terribly so? He’d thought the girl so horribly unimpressive, boring, ordinary; what had he missed? Shaking the thoughts from his head, Sherlock collected up everything he’d come in with and pulled on his coat before leaving the lab to go relay his findings to a young Miss Emiliana Haverschmith.


	3. House Out Of Town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that Sherlock knows the what had been administered in to his client's father, it's time for him to go speak with her so he can track down her mother, but will it be as simple as going to her house and talking with her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been so damned scatterbrained lately!  
> My best friend just got me hired at her job, and so I have been working very hard hours overnights. Add that to having just started therapy, and a few other things, I have been so busy! I am SO sorry, my lovelies, but I am finally updating and maybe this chapter will make you feel better about having waited so long?   
> Thank you!

Sherlock had practically been on autopilot the entire walk outside from Bart’s, hailing the cab, and the ride to Emiliana’s house. He hadn’t even realized he’d left Bart’s until the cabbie pulled into a gravel driveway leading to a house on the outskirts of London. He had been absorbed in his thoughts for the entire drive, but once the car’s tires had hit gravel as opposed to the smoother asphalt they’d been on, Sherlock was pulled from his thoughts. He pulled the envelope from his pocket and compared the address of the house to the address on the envelope; they matched to the ‘T’ and Sherlock realized he’d need to ask Mycroft to send a car for him when he was ready to leave.

Sherlock paid the cabbie and climbed from the vehicle before the man had the sense to speak to him; humans and their tedious need to bid one farewell, it was all so mundane. Sherlock gave the outside of the house a sweeping gaze as he made his way to the front door; it was the picture of a typical white collar home, with flower beds on either side of the small porch. A small coffee can sat on the third step up, filled with cigarette butts and stagnant water from the last rain; faded and mostly washed away chalk drawings littered the cement of each step, as well as the landing of the porch.

Sherlock moved to the door and ignored the sign taped over the doorbell, ringing it anyways; the sign read “Do Not Ring Doorbell Under *ANY* Circumstance” but Sherlock was a curious glutton in this case. Not even half a minute had passed before the door was wrenched open.

“Can you not read?!” An angry voice snapped and Sherlock was held in a furious glare. He was taken slightly aback, as he had not been expecting someone other than the young girl he had met earlier in the day; he would have assumed this person was a visiting friend, but a quick deduction told him that wasn’t right.

Her outfit seemed slightly casual, though her demeanor and stance screamed professionalism; a few straggling strands of fur suggested 3 different cats, hair pulled back into a tight (yet messy) ponytail riding high, and her hands were slightly pruned; she smelled strongly of disinfectant, as well as a small drying spot on her shirt suggested she’d done the dishes and had moved on to harder cleaning. She must be a maid.

“I assure you that I can, in fact, read; very well, at that.” Sherlock recovered smoothly, composing himself just seconds after the fact. “I am looking for a Miss Emiliana, if you would point me in the correction direction.”

“Emi is up in her study.” The maid stepped aside to allow Sherlock inside. “But no one is permitted into her study at any point in time. You may wait in the lounge, the hall, or anywhere you wish, really, but you will need to wait for her to emerge on her own; even knocking is a bad idea.”

She shut the door and leveled him with another dirty look. “I mean it; no one is allowed to enter her study or even knock at the door.” She disappeared down the hallway and turned into a room before Sherlock had the chance to respond, not that he would have dignified her with a response even if he’d wanted to.

The inside of the house was a far cry different than the exterior; it wasn’t filthy by any means, but Sherlock would swear children resided inside the home, but he hadn’t read any signs on either the maid or the girl he’d met earlier in the day.

There was hardly any noise to be heard; a scrubbing sound could be heard from what Sherlock assessed must be the kitchen, which would explain where the maid had gone, as well as faint music from the upstairs. The music wasn’t entirely identifiable to the detective, though he could tell from the rough arching of guitar and drums that it was hard rock in genre; he knew if he followed it, he would find Emiliana’s study.

The first floor landing was littered with a collection of outside wear, neatly hung and put away in a particular pattern; jackets were hung by color, in alphabetical order by each shade said item correlated to; shoes, scarves, and other items were set up in the same type of pattern.

Sherlock made his way down the hall, observing as he did; a door sat beneath the stairs and judging from the slight sound of running water, Sherlock deduced there was a bathroom behind the door. An open doorway was directly across from the bathroom and, from the quick glance Sherlock gave, not only was it the kitchen currently occupied by the maid but it was also incredibly sterile and devoid of any personality; white and silver tones, every inch was scrubbed and clearly bleached of any dust or shoe scruff. A fairly large white board hung on the wall, with what Sherlock could tell was a schedule, and a cork-board hung next to it with papers pinned to it; Sherlock hardly gave it another glance as he continued down the hall.

The hall held two more doorways; one at the very end, and one next to the kitchen. The first doorway was open, like the kitchen, and was clearly a dining room, though it held much more life than the kitchen; the heavy curtains for what Sherlock could tell was a bay window held scorch marks that stood out in contrast to their light blue color. Sherlock’s lip quirked a tad, though he continued observing; the dining room table had scattered scorch marks as well, on top of which were crayon, marker, and paint drawings. The floor seemed in the middle of a slow remodel, telltale signs of a carpet once having been laid down had clearly been ripped out; sample swatches of new carpet, as well as tile and linoleum squares, sat stacked in a corner but Sherlock could tell they had not been touched in weeks.

There were multiple pictures hung on the walls, each holding a bottle of soda roughly half full on the frames, dead center; the liquid inside the bottles were completely straight, and Sherlock could tell that was the point. Aside from the pictures, an open doorway sat dead center on the left wall, which Sherlock could see led into the kitchen; the pictures weren’t of any interest to him, so he moved on to the final door in the hallway.

There was a door on this frame, cracked just slightly open; as Sherlock pushed it entirely open, he observed that the latch had been removed from the door. The door frame had a few cracks and splinters along it and, stepping into the room, Sherlock could see holes in the bottom of the door facing the inside of the room; the holes were roughly the same in size to a set of small feet. Sherlock assessed that the door had endured quite a few temper tantrums, which further proved the ‘child lives here’ theory, though he wouldn’t assume just yet, as it would be a personal blow to his ego.

The room appeared to be the lounge the maid had mentioned; a large flat screen television mounted to the wall above a beautiful fireplace, which was clearly unused for its purpose as it was devoid of any tools for starting a fire or stoking the flames. A shelf that held a DVD player and cable box was attached to the wall a few feet from the TV; built in bookshelves littered both walls adjacent to the fireplace and were filled to the brim with movies of all kinds, sorted by genre and alphabetized by title.

A matching love seat and sofa sat on either side of another bay window on the far wall; 2 oversized beanbags sat in one corner, accompanied by 3 large plush toys over 6 feet in size if stood up and a storage container without a lid. Sherlock moved over to the container and peered inside, noting a school room’s worth of art supplies; crayons, markers, colored pencils, non-toxic washable paints, painting utensils, and a wide variety of coloring books, with loose papers that had previously been colored on.

Having observed everything in the downstairs, Sherlock made his way from the lounge and back down the hallway, hesitating at the landing of the steps that led upstairs. He wasn’t even sure why he had explored the house; sure, observation was in his nature, but he typically observed in his vicinity or a large crime scene, and the home was neither.

Sherlock gave no second thought before making his way up the stairs; with each step the music grew louder and as soon as his feet hit the second floor landing it was clear which room the music was pumping from. There were four doors on the second floor, two on the right, one on the left, and one dead ahead; the first door was ajar and, after a quick glance, he could tell it was an extra bedroom (likely where the maid slept) and fairly devoid of the personality Sherlock had picked up on since entering the house. The second door on the right was also open and Sherlock could see it was a bathroom; it was decorated as if it belonged in a hotel, or a grandmother’s house; floral print was amassed, as if the 1970’s vomited all over the room. Ugly patterned towels matched the shower curtain, and the ugly floral print on the rug and toilet seat covers matched, but neither set matched the other.

Sherlock stepped over into the doorway of the room at the very end of the landing; the final room on the second floor with the door open, it turned out to be another bedroom. Sherlock’s lip quirked a bit, amused by what he saw; the room was familiar to him, not in the sense that he’d ever been here before but more in the sense that it was very much like his own room. Clothes and toys covered the large queen sized bed, as well as the floor; thousands of legos were strewn across the area, with a half built structure pushed up against one wall. If Sherlock had to guess, he’d say it was the beginning of a human-sized castle.

Posters, pictures, and stickers lined nearly every inch of visible wall around the entire room; Shakespeare, Stephen Hawking, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Einstein; Hello Kitty, My Little Pony, The Avengers, and Doctor Who; Supernatural, Deadpool, X-Files, and Harry Potter; these were just to name a few of the pictures and stickers adorning the walls. Looking up, Sherlock could even see pictures of some guy in particular adhered to the ceiling above the bed; he wasn’t sure who the actor was (he wasn’t fond of television unless under certain circumstances) but it was the same actor that was plastered to a few of the Doctor Who posters (Sherlock was quite grateful most of the pictures and stickers named what they were). There were two doors on opposite walls; one had double doors, on a track, that Sherlock could clearly tell was to a closet; the other door sat ajar, and led into what he could see was the Master bathroom.

Sherlock backed out of the doorway and turned towards the final door on the second floor landing; it was the only door that was closed, and was clearly the source of the music (which had changed to very harsh sounding techno, which was not Sherlock’s idea of music).

Sherlock knew the maid downstairs had warned him not to bother the young girl while she was in her study, but what could be the harm in doing so? Besides, he never really listened in the first place; plus, he hadn’t been given a reason not to aside from that ‘no one is allowed.’ Sherlock grabbed the handle and pushed open the door just as the song on the other side ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have already begun writing the next chapter, but as always I haven't a clue when it will be posted; hopefully by this weekend?


	4. Who are you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't summarize this without giving anything away, but I hope you enjoy this chapter!

“NOOOO! GET OUT, GET OUT!” A book hit the wall next to Sherlock’s head mere seconds after the shriek rang through the air. It only took a few seconds for Sherlock to realize he’d caused a reaction he hadn’t expected; usually the detective didn’t care in the slightest if he agitated someone, but he forced himself to leave the room and close the door behind him. He backed a few feet from the door and stared at it as he heard the telltale sounds of a new song beginning then being switched off.

With the music no longer playing, Sherlock could now hear shrieking and books being thrown around; it was very distinctly temper-tantrum-sounding to him. After a minute or so, the shrieking tapered off into wailing and the sound of books hitting walls turned into other items; plastic, perchance? Sherlock was weighing the pros and cons of leaving when the sound of feet thundering up the stairs reached his ears.

“Who are you?! What did you do?!” Sherlock looked at the source of the angry voice; another maid?

The first maid that had let him in followed the new one and Sherlock could tell that he’d made a very bad choice, not that he cared much. He did things like this on cases all the time and it never fazed him, though it occurred to him that he very much faced the possibility of being thrown out at this point.

“I warned you not to knock or go in that room! Clearly you have a hearing malfunction! In this house, you follow our rules! I’ll teach yo-“

“Jo, i-it’s fine.” The maid (now known as Jo) was cut off by a stuttering third voice; Sherlock looked over to see the young girl had emerged from her study. Her face was red and blotchy, evidence that she’d been crying; tear tracks were stained on her face, but that wasn’t all that had drawn Sherlock’s attention to her. She looked drastically different than she had when he’d met her earlier that very day; her hair was matted and untamed, sticking up in different directions as if it had not been brushed in days, and was quite a few inches shorter now than it had been hours earlier. She was dressed in lavender colored silk pajamas that were clearly multiple sizes too large; both top and bottoms were incredibly baggy, and Sherlock would bet that the bottoms had been re-hemmed to include a string so they could be tied to stay up.

Her facial features seemed different as well; not just that she seemed to be avoiding eye contact with everyone, and her face was neutral, but also that her eyebrows were less tamed than earlier. Her lips were less full, there were no signs of makeup having been on her face as it had earlier, and her eyes were a different shade of blue. It only took a few seconds for Sherlock to figure out that this was a different girl than the visitor he’d received earlier.

“Y-your shift ended. You c-can go home, Jo. A-and I-I-I’ll be fine, Maddie.”

Neither maid seemed thrilled with this order, but after a few seconds they relented and disappeared down the stairs.

“N-no one is a-above r-rules, Mr. Holmes. So p-p-please explain to me why I s-sent my caretakers away and not l-let them throw you out.” The girl sniffled, her breath hitching and words stuttering every so often with the aftereffects of having cried so heavily.

“Maybe I’m mistaken, which is a highly doubtful situation, but I was led to believe this was the home of a Miss Emiliana Haverschmith. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you do not look like the Emiliana I met earlier this day.” Sherlock was annoyed, which was clear, but he was attempting to be more courteous than he was in a typical day; it wasn’t often that someone fooled him of all people, after all.

“I’m Emiliana.” She turned and squatted in front of the still-cracked door that led into her study, making a soft clucking noise. “You didn’t meet me earlier today.” It hardly took until she finished her sentence before a bird appeared in the doorway. The young girl lifted the bird from the floor to her shoulder and made a kissing noise to it; the bird responded in kind, pressing its beak against Emiliana’s cheek while making the noise back.

“You m-met my twin b-brother earlier.” Emiliana’s attention seemed entirely focused on the bird perched on her shoulder, but she continued to speak to Sherlock. “He’s a-a-an aspiring actor, w-wants to make it big time. H-h-he had an audition today, th-this afternoon in fact, and I-I-I told him the situation. He agreed t-to take the case to you s-s-so long as he could dress up l-like me; practice, he said. A-a-and from the looks of it, he did a magnificent job.”

“That doesn’t exactly explain why you would send your brother. That seems rather pointless when you could have come yourself.”

“Maybe I just wanted to help my brother get some practice in before his audition.” She cracked a slight grin, tilting her gaze towards the ceiling. “He said to thank you, by the way. He landed the role because of you.”

“Humans are inherently selfish, and this case being one of such importance to you, you wouldn’t have allowed it to be used as practice for an acting audition.” Sherlock noticed for the first time that the girl’s fingers were fidgeting with something. “So that still does not explain why he went and you did not.”

“I’m not exactly permitted to leave my house, nor am I really jumping at the chance to.” Sherlock noticed that her pyjama bottoms were also moving slightly, as if her toes were wriggling underneath the fabric. “Here, this is why you came.” Sherlock looked at Emiliana’s hand as she held out a folded piece of paper to him.

He knew without looking that there was a list of possible locations of her mother written down. “Why are you not permitted to leave?”

For all of a fraction of a second, the girl made eye contact with him before hastily looking away, a sheepish grin spreading over her features. “If you haven’t figured it out, then who am I to tell you? You are, after all, the famous Sherlock Holmes; you can figure it out if you allow yourself time to dwell on the signs.”

Before Sherlock could respond, Emiliana called for Maddie to show him out and she disappeared back into her study with the bird that, after a moment of thought, Sherlock realized was a Bali Myna. As the maid known as Maddie appeared to show him out, he heard the telltale sounds of the young girl’s music starting back up and he wondered exactly what she’d meant about him figuring it out. The maid kept her mouth shut the entire time and once he was outside, he heard the click of the door being locked behind him. She clearly didn’t like him very much, not that he could blame her; he’d upset the lady of the house, after all.

There was clearly some obvious reason she had caretakers, as well as needing permission to leave her house, but Sherlock decided not to dwell on it; he had more important things at the present moment. Once outside, he pulled out his phone and dialed Mycroft, much to his own dismay; he hated having to talk to his brother or ask for things.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, brother mind?” Mycroft answered his phone, obvious amusement in his tone.

“I need you to send a car to pick me up at this address.” Sherlock cut straight to the point, not wanting to play into Mycroft’s games as he read off the address he was located at. “And make it fast.”

“Another drug den, dear brother?” Mycroft didn’t hide the annoyance from his tone, though a bit of concern flowed through unbidden.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “No, _brother mine_ , I am on a case.” His response was fairly sarcastic and normal people would assume it was guilt associated, meaning he was high, but he knew Mycroft knew better; when the sigh of relief sounded on the other end, Sherlock knew he’d gotten his point across.

“A car is already on the way. It should be there in a few minutes.” The sound of a click followed, signifying Mycroft had hung up.

Sherlock pulled his phone from his ear and sent a quick text off to John to meet him back at Baker Street before pocketing the device.

Having secured a ride for himself, Sherlock allowed himself to ponder just what exactly the young girl had meant about him figuring it out for himself; surely that meant he was missing something obvious, and Sherlock tended not to miss obvious things unless it pertained to social convention. Really, who cared about social cues? The world would be much better off if everyone spoke their minds and avoided lying to one another. Surely no one would be near as sensitive and sentimental as they currently were, at the very least.

Sherlock stepped off the porch and looked behind him at the windows of the house; he could see the young girl looking out the window. Though she wasn’t actually looking directly at him, he could tell she was watching him; it was another sign, but of what he could not figure out. Another thing nagging at him was the bird; while it was normal for people to own pets, and even birds, it struck him as odd that not only were there no signs of a bird existing in the house outside of the study, but also that she owned a bird that was not native to this country.

All pet stores tended to frown heavily on selling, or even caging endangered species. So either the young girl got the bird from a sketchy back-alley seller or possibly it was a present. There could be multiple reasons, but Sherlock knew the law well enough that he knew she’d get in very big trouble if it were revealed that she owned this bird.

Sherlock had been lost in thought when the car pulled up for him. “Where to, Mr. Holmes?” The driver asked as he opened the back door for Sherlock.

“221B Baker Street.” Sherlock got in the backseat and began texting John his discoveries about the case, ignoring the driver best he could; the driver was the same one Mycroft always sent, and the same one that always drove whenever Sherlock was pulled from whatever drug den of the week he found himself in. Sherlock never knew the driver’s name, but he knew that this wasn’t Mycroft’s favorite driver; he was simply the driver that was most easily paid off to keep silent about Sherlock’s drug habits.

Despite it seeming that his attention was focused on texting, Sherlock was actually paying more attention to the route the driver took to get back to Baker Street; the area seemed incredibly familiar to him, though he wasn’t sure why. It felt nostalgic to him, with a sense of déjà vu, and yet he could swear he hadn’t been here before.

Sherlock had just barely shaken off the feeling as the driver turned up Baker Street, bringing him right up in front of his flat. Sherlock opened the door and got out before the driver could make it to his door, disappearing into his flat without a word of thanks to the driver.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be dedicated to the first person able to guess what, exactly, it is that Emiliana has that covers all of the symptoms and signs. Hint: it's a mental disorder. Good luck! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? I hope you did! I know I did.....and I'm the one writing it!


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